


Exhale the Past, Inhale the Future

by evakuality



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-13 03:07:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28646508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evakuality/pseuds/evakuality
Summary: With David leaving for several years and no real idea when he'll return, he and Matteo decide to split up.  When they meet again three years later, things are more awkward than they expected.  So how can they possibly forge a new friendship out of what they had in the past?
Relationships: Matteo Florenzi/David Schreibner
Comments: 86
Kudos: 107





	1. David

**Author's Note:**

> While the start of this is set in 2020, it's in a different timeline where these sorts of things can actually happen.
> 
> I would like to thank Boudoir-of-secrets who was incredibly helpful through the development of this fic!

**Late summer 2020**

Matteo’s face is white and drawn, and David feels all the pain of that look. There are a hundred reasons why this is the right idea and yet he knows Matteo feels just as unhappy as he does about it. That’s the great curse and blessing of knowing someone as well as he knows Matteo. David leaves for America in less than a week. He’s going to be away at least two years, maybe more. This all makes sense.

But that doesn’t stop the pain.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers as he wraps Matteo up in his arms and soaks in the clean, musky scent of his hair. It might be the last time he ever gets to do this, and David closes his eyes against the agony of that thought. 

“I am, too,” Matteo says softly, “but it makes sense.”

That word again. Matteo’s voice chokes on the last word as he tightens his grip on David. It seems like he’s soaking up these last few moments as well, and that pains David almost more than his own reactions. 

“It’s not fair,” he murmurs quietly.

“No,” Matteo agrees. “But there’s no real alternative.”

They’d tried, over the last few months, to work out some other way. They’d gone over everything in minute detail. But the fact remains. They have no idea when David will come back, and Matteo has to stay here. A clean break just makes sense. Matteo steps back and looks at David with a wobbly attempt at a smile that crushes David’s heart.

“We don’t know when you’re coming back, and it’s stupid to pause both our lives for something like that.”

“I know,” David says. “Doesn’t make it any easier.”

Matteo huffs out a small, sad laugh at that. “King of the understatement,” he says.

In the glimmering sunlight, he looks angelic with his hair lit up and his pale face adding to the picture. David knows just how false an image that is, knows intimately all the ways in which Matteo can be an annoying pest, and yet it feels right. In so many ways, Matteo has been a source of peace and comfort in David’s life and the idea of losing that stabs him. Worse, the idea that Matteo will fall back into his old habits haunts David too. 

“Promise me you’ll live a good life,” David whispers urgently.

“I will, of course,” Matteo says, as if he understands why David is asking. He does, of course. They have learned to understand each other over the last year. “You taught me that. You will too.”

It’s not a question; Matteo says it as if he’s sure. As if he knows. Sighing, David pulls him into another hug. He can’t make this as final as it should be. It’s two years, maybe more, and yet he wants a thread of hope. So he whispers into Matteo’s neck, “and promise me that, no matter what, when I get back we’ll meet up again.”

Matteo nods, hair tickling David’s cheek as he pulls David in more tightly for a moment. Of everything that’s happened today, Matteo’s hair is the one that tips David over. He’s alternatively loved and complained about the way that hair feels, delicate and ever-present, throughout their entire relationship. It’s so familiar, part of what makes them who they are together, that his heart aches with the pain of its loss in this last moment.

So it is that their last kiss is tinged with salt. David had tried hard to make it easier on Matteo, tried to avoid doing this. But in the end he can’t do it. This decision is sensible and right, but it  _ feels _ all wrong. All David can do as he steps back and turns to walk away, is hold onto the promise that when he comes back they will meet again. It’s all that holds him together as he leaves.

**Early summer 2023**

The bustle and noise of the airport is overwhelming. Despite becoming used to an energetic, fast-paced lifestyle at his university, David finds he’s not ready for the mundane noise and chaos of his old home. It doesn’t help that he’s exhausted from the flight, unable to sleep for the entire seemingly-endless time they were in the air. It was a combination of time zones messing with him, and a flickering anxiety about what it would be like to be back in Germany after so long away.

So it is that he’s feeling disgruntled and out of sorts as he looks around the crowded space, trying to pick Laura out of the hubbub. She always wears a distinctive note of red, which should be easy to spot but she’s nowhere in sight, and David can feel his temper fraying as he tries to find her trademark colour on a top or a hair accessory, or  _ something. _

While looking around, he spots a shock of messy blond hair above a red t-shirt and his heart skips a beat. It won’t be  _ him, _ but David’s never quite managed to quell this reaction. He’s had a good time over the last three years, found solace and enjoyed a few serious relationships with some great people. He hasn’t mourned or pined, by any stretch of the imagination. And yet, nothing has ever quite measured up to what he had with Matteo. 

He knows it’s some combination of the flush and delight of first love and the fact that they really weren’t ready to part when they broke up, knows that it’s a nostalgic remnant of something that no longer exists. And yet, he can’t reason the reactions away either. So sometimes this happens. David will see a mop of hair that’s reminiscent of Matteo’s and he can’t prevent his heart from skipping that beat. It’s never Matteo, of course, so David is used to the flickers of disappointment as he turns to go about his business.

This time, the guy looks up and David is caught by a pair of blue eyes and his breath catches. It doesn’t take the wide grin that splits his face to let David know that this time it’s different. He stops, frozen to the spot, as all the memories flood in. While the memory of their promise has tickled at the back of his mind, getting stronger as he got closer to home, David wasn’t ready to face up to it immediately.

Matteo starts pushing through the crowd towards him, which means he’s here on purpose. He’s here for David, and after all this time, that’s a bewildering thought. But Laura isn’t here, and Matteo is, so David pulls his scattered thoughts together and drags what he hopes is a natural smile onto his own face.

Then Matteo is in his space, grinning naturally as if they see each other every day and waving as if this is all very normal for him. David examines him, taking in all the ways he’s changed. He seems taller, or maybe he’s just learned to hold himself straighter, with more confidence. The planes of his face, which had still seemed boyish when they parted, have honed. He’s more angular, bones more obvious in his cheeks as he smiles. But he’s still got the same cheeky glint in his eyes, and his mouth still twists up on one side.

“Hi,” Matteo says when he finally reaches David’s side.

“Hey.” Trying to seem natural, as if this meeting after a sleepless flight hasn’t knocked David totally off kilter, David cocks his head appraisingly. “You’ve changed since I last saw you, Laura.”

Matteo’s laugh booms out at that and he reaches for David's bags. “She sent me. She had some sort of crisis at work. Apparently it’s done now and she’s home, but she didn’t want to risk it.” He indicates towards the exit with his head. “You want to get out of here?”

Mind whirling, David follows him. He knew, of course, that Matteo and Laura were still in touch. They post occasional pictures on social media together, and Laura casually mentions him in conversation every now and then. But part of David is wary. He’s sure she’s done this on purpose, knowing without having to be told that none of his relationships has ever measured up to Matteo. She’s always been able to read him.

Watching Matteo as he trails him out of the airport, David can only assume it’s not the same for him. There’s no hint that the memory of their last emotional meeting is having the same effect on Matteo. Quite the contrary; Matteo is chatting to David as if to an old friend and appears totally unaffected by this sudden, shock meeting. Of course, he’s had some warning, but even so. The contrast between David’s whirling, exhausted mixture of feelings and Matteo’s sunny easiness is so stark.

Maybe that’s what this is all about. Laura has a shrewd idea about their pact to meet up again. David knows she thinks it’s a potentially difficult thing to do well, so maybe she’s trying to lessen the impact for David. It’s clear that Matteo has been able to live his life much more effectively than David has.  _ His _ has seemed to be on hold, treading water as he studied before going back to his ‘real’ life in Germany. Matteo is happy to see David, that much is clear. But he’s been here, enmeshed in the daily life that David has wanted to get back to, and David feels more left behind than ever as they make their way out to the car so he can restart his life.


	2. Matteo

**Early summer 2023**

Even though he had a suspicion that Laura was throwing them together on purpose, Matteo had still jumped at the chance to collect David from the airport when the opportunity arose. It has been three long years since David left to go study in the US, but that hasn’t dampened Matteo's curiosity about what he’s been up to.

The years have treated Matteo well, and he feels happy and secure in who he is. Which.. fucking  _ finally. _ There had been one serious boyfriend, Sebastian, which had lasted two years. Matteo is reasonably sure he’d only been secure enough in himself to make it last that long because of David. Everything Matteo had learned about having - and being - a boyfriend, he’d learned from his time with David, and he’s grateful that it had enabled him to work through the various issues that had cropped up with Sebastian. 

In many ways, knowing what it was like with David, made it easier for Matteo to know when it wasn’t going so well with Sebastian. This new break still stings a little, ending very recently, but it had been good and the ending feels both relieving and solidly cauterised. In some ways it’s a better ending than the one with David; that one had felt too soon when he hadn’t been ready to say goodbye. Some days he still wonders if choosing to split had been the right idea.

Matteo remembers, vividly, the promise he and David had made to each other when they’d parted and he’d done his best to live up to it. Living a good and fulfilling life is the least he’d owed to David and everything they’d been through together. And he’s done that as best he could, taking risks and pushing himself in ways he never would have before he’d met David. 

The other part of that promise has been on his mind, too, though. David hasn’t been back since he left, due to time and cost, so they haven’t had a chance to make good on it.  _ When I get back we’ll meet up again _ , David had said. Laura doesn’t know about the promise, Matteo is fairly sure, but she’s still throwing them together. Matteo’s not sure why, but he thinks her ‘work crisis’ isn’t as critical as she’s pretending. Part of him is happy about this interference, wondering what David might be like after so long away and so long in another culture. That part of him holds David’s memory as something shimmering and bright in his heart.

But when he finally reaches David, he’s quiet and almost aloof. The few aborted attempts at humour and conversation don’t go far, and Matteo is left feeling a weird dissonance between this David and the one he used to know. The David in front of him in the airport vividly reminds Matteo of how he was back when they first met outside the Abi meeting at school. It’s  _ such _ a contrast to the David who has been living in Matteo’s memory that he’s taken aback. The impulse is there to make a joke and try to recapture some of the way they’d been back before David had gone, something about the Abi meeting that’s suddenly on Matteo’s mind again.

One look at David’s face, however, and Matteo swallows the comments he was going to make. He looks pale, tired and overwhelmed. He doesn’t seem to be in the mood to indulge in any ‘do you remember’ trips down memory lane and into their shared past. It’s probably for the best anyway. What they had was so intense, and it still lives and takes up space in Matteo’s memory. Talking about it, dissecting it, runs the risk of stealing some of the magic from it.

David’s still gorgeous, though, when Matteo allows himself to really look at him. His eyes are a specific shade of liquid brown that Matteo had almost forgotten in the years since he’d last seen them, and they’re still framed by ridiculously long lashes. They sit in a face whose planes have honed and sharpened. His jawline has also strengthened, a hint of facial hair making the stronger lines more obvious. What had once been so familiar that Matteo had been able to trace every well-loved inch in his memory has morphed into something so new and so devastatingly attractive that he loses breath when he sees David.

He’s tilted so quickly off centre by this strange, alien David that Matteo finds himself throwing out whatever banal small talk comes to mind. It’s so awkward, making that meaningless conversation on the ride back to Laura’s, awkward in a way he’s never been with David and never expected to be. Matteo’s babbling, he knows it, leaving very little room for David to get any words in even if he wants to. But casting a look sideways at him, Matteo thinks he probably  _ doesn’t _ want to. His head is leaning back on the head rest and his eyes keep drifting to the scenes flowing past outside the car.

“Sorry,” David mutters finally when even Matteo’s attempts at conversation stutter to a halt. He looks over at Matteo and smiles, something small and sad. “I didn’t sleep on the plane so I’m too tired to be good company. I appreciate you getting me like this though.”

Indeed, grey smudges sit under his eyes and his lids droop and flutter with the effort of keeping them open.

“It’s okay,” Matteo says. “I get it.”

David sucks in a breath, his eyes dragging away from Matteo's to look outside again.

“It’s all different,” he says, and Matteo thinks he can detect a glimmer of wistfulness in his tone. “It’s only been three years, so why is it so different?”

“Different eyes,” Matteo says, steering them down the streets leading to Laura’s home. “All you can see is what’s changed.” He nods at the street they’re navigating. “It looks nearly the same to me.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Matteo can see David turn to examine him. 

“That’s true,” he says, and his voice sounds marginally happier when he looks out the window again. “Things aren’t necessarily so different as they seem.” There’s a meaning in the words that Matteo can’t fathom, and he shakes his head as he refocuses on the road.

It’s more painful than Matteo had imagined, being here with David and feeling so awkward. There was a time when they knew all of each other’s secrets, when this was the person Matteo knew better than anyone in the world. But time and distance have taken their toll, and Matteo is in the frankly bizarre situation of not being able to read David at all.

He grimaces as David lapses back into silence, wondering at the wisdom of that long-ago promise. Maybe, he thinks, as he pulls up to Laura’s building and shuts the car off, it would have been better to let sleeping dogs lie. The silence surrounding them in the absence of the engine’s whir is deafening, and it’s hard to drag a smile onto his face as Laura barrels out of the building to drag her brother into a long, emotional hug.

Matteo remembers what David’s hugs felt like, warm and solid and like  _ home. _ He swallows as he watches the two of them together, at the outpouring of emotion. Feeling awkward and out of place, Matteo tries to pull back so he can leave them to it and head home, but Laura spots his movement over David’s shoulder as he places the last of the bags down onto the sidewalk.

“Stay for a drink,” she insists.

Her eyes are wide and sparkling as she takes him in, and he can’t bring himself to deny her this. She’s been wary and diminished without David, Matteo realises as he watches them together. She’s bubbly and vivid in a way she hardly ever has been since David left. It brings to mind the day Matteo had caught her dancing in the kitchen. The memory of that particular moment, and what it had meant for their relationship, stabs at him him as he reluctantly acquiesces to her request and follows the two of them inside.

Matteo’s never going to survive David being back in his life if he keeps doing this. David will slot into the corners of Matteo’s life, the way he already is, and it’s going to be far too difficult to cope with if he keeps getting attacked with his memories of their time together every time something takes them somewhere that used to be important to them. 

Matteo had thought that seeing David again would be great, a way to acknowledge how far he’s come. Instead, he is besieged by too many memories and confronted by a closed off David. He follows the siblings into their flat, and realises just how much he’d been depending on having the old David back with him again.  _ His _ David. Watching the stiff, tense slope of his back as he enters the room, Matteo wonders if he should pull back from this friendship. How much point is there in trying to stay in Laura’s life - and David's by extension - if it’s only going to dredge up painful memories every time he sees her.


	3. David

**Early summer 2023**

Laura’s motives are incomprehensible. David had thought she was trying to remind him how foolish it is for him to still be so hooked up on Matteo, but if that had been the case, she’s not likely to have invited Matteo in. So David’s watching her with narrowed eyes as she laughs with Matteo and forces him to make drinks for everyone. They banter together, and Matteo shoves her when she says something particularly teasing. The sight is unnerving;  _ he _ used to be the one to do that with Matteo. It’s a casual, intimate relationship Laura and Matteo have developed, much more so than the one they had before David left, which makes him wonder if they’ve spent more time together than he’d realised.

Not for the first time, David regrets the fact that he never had enough money to come home. He’s missed this so much, and there’s a pang of envy as he watches two people, who have meant so much to him, so clearly at ease and comfortable in each other’s company. David tries, as best he can, to take part in the conversation. But he’s so tired, and their banter is so scattered with in-jokes, that he knows he’s putting up a poor showing.

Eventually, Matteo excuses himself to the bathroom and Laura turns to David with a shrewd look.

“What’s the matter?” she asks.

“I’m just tired,” he says. He’s never been able to lie to her, so he knows he’ll never get away with pretending everything’s fine. But he’s hoping this comment, part of the truth, will be enough to deflect her.

Laura rolls her eyes. “I can tell you’re tired,” she says. “But there’s more than that.”

David sighs, hands wrapped around the mug of coffee that Matteo had made exactly the way he likes it. It’s disorientating that Matteo still knows him well enough to do that. That David is still enough of the same person that Matteo  _ can _ do that.

“It’s just weird,” David admits to Laura eventually. “Everything’s different, but it’s also the same, and I don’t know how to  _ be _ here.” He shrugs. “Even speaking German all the time is weird.”

Laura nods as if she gets it. “It’ll take time,” she says gently. “You only just got back, so you just have to give yourself some time.”

He has a strange feeling that she’s talking about something bigger than speaking German. Squinting, he’s about to ask her what she means when Matteo returns.

“Thanks for the drink,” he says, nodding at his empty cup on the counter. “But I really should head home.” He grimaces. “I have a lot of stuff to pack up before Sebastian comes to get it tomorrow.”

Laura wrinkles her nose, and Matteo laughs. “I know what you think of him,” he says. “But at least if I pack it, I won’t have to have him there for too long tomorrow.”

“Fair enough,” she says, then pulls him into a hug. “You’re too good for him, I hope you know that.”

She’s quiet, but not so quiet that David can’t hear, and he quickly takes a drink from his own cup, trying to pretend that he doesn’t hear. But he can’t help it, and a lump jumps into his throat when Laura steps back and looks Matteo in the face before adding, “and don’t be a stranger, okay? You’re always welcome here.”

Matteo’s face when she says it is so familiar that David's heart aches as his eyes flicker in David’s direction. He can tell Matteo's been thinking he needs to step away, and he can also tell that Laura knows exactly what she’s doing by insisting that he stay in her life. That David’s the cause of Matteo’s hesitation to keep visiting is obvious, and he stares at his drink as if it can swallow him and all his stupid emotions. He’s an intruder here in so many ways, and it feels odd and alien to be the one keeping Matteo away from someone he cares about. Even if she’s  _ David’s _ sister.

Matteo says something in reply that David can’t quite hear, and Laura laughs, then Matteo’s leaving. David’s so taken aback by the swiftness of Matteo’s movements that he finds himself automatically leaning in to hug him as he heads for the door. And that is a mistake. It’s been three years since the last time they touched, and yet his body remembers Matteo’s and in his exhausted state he can feel himself melting into the touch.

Matteo’s spine stiffens and he pulls back quickly, then makes a hasty exit. His eyes light on David’s as he shuts the door behind him, and there’s something soft and questioning in them that makes the lump in David’s throat worse. Matteo’s just got out of a relationship, that much is clear, and so all of this stuff, up to and including David’s own exhaustion, means this is all a terrible idea.

He groans, and buries his face in his hands. It’s clear that Matteo is single right now, but equally clear that whatever happened with him and this Sebastian was both long term and didn’t end particularly amicably. This is absolutely not the time for David to be thinking anything related to Matteo. He’s tired and vulnerable, and sure that’s why this is all so difficult.

But he can be honest enough with himself to acknowledge that seeing Matteo again has rocked him off balance and shown him that he never really did get over what they had. The partners he found in the US didn’t last, and it seems like this is why. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the promise he made to Matteo, that they’d meet up again, whispered like a beacon, hampering all his efforts to live life to the fullest. That Matteo hadn’t felt the same way is clear in the fact that he  _ did _ find a relationship, even if it doesn’t seem to have ended all that well.

“He missed you too,” Laura observes quietly from her seat at the table. 

David blinks at her, wondering where that came from, and she laughs. Getting up to pull him into another of her warm hugs, Laura sighs into his neck. “I missed you,” she says. “I missed being able to confuse you like that.” She stands back and holds him at arm’s length. “I know you missed him. It’s been obvious this whole time. And I know what you’re thinking right now, but he missed you too. Why else do you think he spent so much time here?”

David shrugs. “I’m too tired for this,” he says and she laughs again.

“You can’t avoid me forever,” she says, patting his arm.

“I can try,” he retorts and she laughs again.

“I really did miss your obstinate ass. It’s so good to have you home.”

“It’s good to be home.”

Then, finally, she lets him go and he’s able to go through to what used to be his bedroom. It’s now set up as a guest room, with a pristine desk filled with a small bookcase and two pot plants. The bed is the same, but the coverings are of a pale blue, and the pillows are fluffier than the ones David remembers. It all brings home, again, the fact that he’s been absent. That his feelings of difference and being off kilter come from somewhere real.

And, David realises with a sinking heart, that he’s been holding onto a lot of things, willing them to never change. Seeing his bedroom stripped of everything that made it his hammers the point home. Because as he’d observed to Matteo on the drive here, nothing has stayed the same, and even if Matteo is right and it’s just his new eyes seeing things differently, it’s still a reminder that he can’t ever go back. It’s still a reminder that anything he might feel for Matteo is tied to the past. He needs to look forward and face the fact that, as painful as it may be, his life needs to be in the future now. Not in the past.

He needs to actually try to live his own promise to himself, to live his life in the best way he can. And he definitely needs to stop thinking about what Matteo's look as he left tonight might have meant.


	4. Matteo

**Early summer 2023**

The doorbell buzzes far too early. Matteo isn’t ready to meet up with Sebastian again just yet. He’s feeling too vulnerable and out of sorts after meeting with David yesterday, but unfortunately today’s the day they agreed he’d come to collect the things that inexorably found their way into Matteo’s place.

He used to wonder why Sebastian wouldn’t move in, had often suggested - sometimes in jest, sometimes seriously - that they should combine their spaces considering just how much of Sebastian’s stuff had taken up residence in Matteo’s home.

In hindsight, though, it’s good that it had never happened. As hard as the break has been, it would have been much harder if they’d had to split a space that was both of theirs. Matteo looks at the three boxes he has lined up against the wall in the hallway, and sighs. It’s all so final, and while Matteo isn’t unhappy that it’s over, it still feels very fragile and he wishes he had some sort of buffer against the strange feelings David has dragged up out of the depths he thought they’d been consigned to.

“Hi,” he says when he swings the door open and looks up into Sebastian’s face.

“Hey.”

Sebastian moves past him, body stiff and awkward as if he too has no idea how to be in the same place together after everything.

“That’s everything?”

Sebastian nods towards the boxes and Matteo swallows a weird lump in his throat as he nods in his own turn. “Yeah. I think so anyway. If… uh, if I find more I’ll text you.”

“Okay.” Sebastian picks up one of the boxes and turns towards the door before looking back. “I wish things had been different,” he says. 

Dragging what he’s sure is an unconvincing smile onto his face, Matteo nods. “Yeah,” he says. “But it happens like that sometimes.”

He means that people fall out of love with each other just as easily as they fall into it and sometimes it’s better to say goodbye, but Sebastian seems to take something different from the words because his mouth twists and his brows furrow.

“I didn’t mean any of it,” he says, his voice tetchy.

“Yeah but you said it,” Matteo says, knowing he’s being testy but unable to stop himself. He waits for half a minute to see if Sebastian will respond before adding, “you were probably right, anyway. I’m not the right person for you.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes and hefts the box higher in his arms. He’s always been annoyed by what he calls Matteo’s passivity, but it gives Matteo a savage pleasure to realise he doesn’t care about that anymore. Instead, he gives Sebastian a much sunnier smile, this one almost real.

He had been intending to offer to carry one of the boxes down for Sebastian, but in a fit of feeling petty he lets him make all three trips by himself. By the time he leaves, sweaty and irritable, Matteo feels much better even if he’s still fragile about the whole business. At least he didn’t let anyone push him around this time. 

Closing the door behind Sebastian, Matteo surveys the area and groans. Now that particular unpleasant piece of business is done with, he wants to get out. He grabs his keys and on impulse decides to go to his favourite cafe. A decent coffee in a slow and unhurried place is exactly what he wants right now. Something to celebrate being done with this era of his life.

By the time he makes it to the cafe, Matteo is sweating and out of breath. He hadn’t noticed quite how badly he’d been neglecting himself over the last little while, and curses the whole break up business for making things close to impossible to deal with, for the lack of care he’s been taking with himself. 

He’s not really in the mood for conversation when he spots a very familiar figure at the counter when he pushes open the door. Groaning, Matteo’s about to give today up as a bad job, about to turn and head home without his celebratory coffee, when David turns around and spots him. He smiles, clearly more awake and energetic than he was yesterday, and the effect is quite devastating. Matteo swallows again and makes his way to the counter, knowing he’d be considered really rude if he didn’t at least say hi now. 

When he gets there, David nods at the food in front of them.

“Do you remember? When we came here before? How we mocked some of these things; I can’t believe they’re still making them,” he says quietly, and that’s enough to tip Matteo over.

He can feel the anxiety building in him as his lips wobble, and he curses under his breath. He’d thought yesterday that David not being in the mood to reminisce was bad, but having him open to it now is worse. It brings everything to the surface.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he says, quietly, trying not to let David see how shitty he’s feeling. “Sebastian was just at home and I didn’t deal with that so well.”

“Oh.” David’s eyes are unfathomable as he tilts his head to examine Matteo. “I’ll leave you alone then.”

Matteo shakes his head, quickly realising he doesn’t want David to leave. “You don’t have to.” He takes a deep breath to settle himself, and looks around at the busy tables around them, realising there’s only one left - outside on the pavement. He nods at it. “Do you want to share a table? I probably need a distraction.”

“I’ll meet you out there,” David says, leaving Matteo to make his own selection which he does while wondering what on earth possessed him to invite David to spend time together. After yesterday, this seems like a really foolish idea. But there’s something about David that soothes the pain of Sebastian, and Matteo’s not above seizing that comfort. After the meeting with Sebastian, he wants to remember that not everyone is so bad.

“So you saw the ex today huh?” David asks, once Matteo settles into the table.

Matteo smiles, a wry acknowledgement of David’s curiosity. “Two exes, actually,” he says, making David laugh.

“Okay, true.”

Matteo stares at the accessories on the table, fiddling with the rough edges of the cafe’s brickwork. It’s strange and awkward being here with David, but there’s none of the tension he’d been feeling when Sebastian had come over. Maybe that’s due to time and distance, but Matteo rather thinks it’s because David is and always has been a much more restful person.

“Were you with that guy for long?” David asks, and Matteo almost winces. He shouldn’t go into this with David of all people, but the old pull is sitting there behind his words. David always was able to get Matteo to open up in a way other people couldn’t.

“Two years,” Matteo says with a shrug. “But it wasn’t so great for the last few months, you know?”

David’s lips purse, and he shrugs, flings his arms comically wide. “Can’t say I do,” he says. “I never had anything that lasted too long. Except…”

Matteo nods, his heart back in his throat and his chest squeezing a little. Except him, he thinks. And their thing didn’t end badly, it wasn’t because they got tired of each other or because they fell out of love or any of the other things that rip people apart. So it makes sense that David hadn’t necessarily known what a break up like this is like.

“What’s it like?” David says, curiosity tinging his tone as he echoes Matteo’s thought, and Matteo huffs a small laugh.

“It’s a lot of work,” he says. “And in the end I didn’t want to do the work anymore.”

“Huh,” David says quietly, fiddling with a napkin. “It never felt like work with us.”

There’s a question in his voice though, as if he’s wondering if Matteo had felt this way with him.

“No. It didn’t,” he says.

The silence that falls then is awkward again. It’s tough to be here like this with David. On one hand, they fall into a pattern they were so comfortable with during the time they were together, spending every waking second in each other’s pockets and loving it. On the other hand, it’s been so long and enough has changed that it’s weird to be doing this at all.

“How was the US?” he asks to cover for the strain that’s dropped into the conversation.

David leans back in his chair and looks upwards as if trying to gain some sort of answer from the sky. He lets out his breath slowly and looks back down at Matteo before answering.

“It was a lot of work. I mean, it was fun and stimulating and I learned so much. But all the time I just wanted to be home, like I didn’t really belong there.” He puffs out his cheeks, chewing his lip before he says more quietly, “but it’s so fucking weird being back. I don’t feel like I belong here either.”

_ You do, _ Matteo wants to say. But does he really; it’s certainly strange and awkward for  _ him _ being here with David. What if that’s true for everyone? What if the ‘new eyes’ he’d mentioned yesterday held some truth? What if David genuinely  _ is _ now stuck between two worlds?

“That must suck,” Matteo says instead.

He knows it was the right thing to say by the way David’s lips twitch upwards.

“Laura says I have to give it time,” he says. “But it does suck right now.”

Smiling, Matteo nods. She may be right. But this must be painful as hell during the transition back to his old life here. Still, for Matteo, meeting David hasn’t been as bad today as it was yesterday. So maybe. Maybe Matteo can learn to salvage something out of all this mess. And maybe it won’t take too long for David to recentre himself and things to become easier. Because David is and has been such an important part of Matteo’s life that he really doesn’t want to have him drop away entirely.

The conversation stalls again then, but their drinks arrive and they’re able to slide into something more banal and away from the scary way that they seem to be able to open up to each other, even after so much time and with the strange dissonance surrounding the way they are together. The way David is the same person but also somehow just ever so slightly different. They drink and talk, both shying away from too many ‘do you remembers’ and it’s the easiest Matteo can remember being for a while.

It’s nice, certainly a much more peaceful situation than the one he just endured with Sebastian. And that’s maybe the weirdest thing of all. How is it possible that someone he’s not seen for so long, and whose reappearance has dredged up so many fragile feelings, is more restful and easier to be with than the one he’s been in love with for the last two years?


	5. David

**Early summer 2023**

Propping his feet up on a chair at the table, the way he knows Laura hates, David tucks his hands behind his head and leans back on his own chair feeling at peace. He’s been home for a week now and it’s starting to feel more like he has a place here. The tendrils he’s sent out, to Leonie and Sara in particular, have enabled him to feel a little more normal.

_ They _ also have in-jokes and shared history David can never hope to understand, but he’s starting to be able to share time with people without worrying about that, without worrying that he’ll forever be on the outside looking in. They are welcoming and delighted to see him, and he thinks it’s possible that his strong reaction to Laura and Matteo’s connection on his first day back was due in part to his exhaustion and in part to his reactions to seeing Matteo again so suddenly.

It had certainly been easier running into him at the cafe, and while their conversation could hardly have been called scintillating, they’d managed okay. He’d realised that Matteo is still one of the people he feels a genuine connection to, someone he’s happy is in his life.

“Oi, get your feet off that chair!” Laura demands as she enters the room.

Rolling his eyes with a grin, David complies. “Yes boss.”

She sits down in the now-vacated seat and leans forward to look him over. “How are things going?” she asks carefully.

“It’s fine.”

Huffing her irritation because she can tell he’s being so cagey just to annoy her, Laura swipes at his legs and he only just gets them out of the way before she connects.

“You know what I mean. Is it getting easier? Being back here?”

“Yeah mostly,” he says. “Some things are still weird, I still feel like people have shared so much that I can’t ever understand.” He grins at her again. “But speaking German all the time isn’t so bad, and I fixed my room so it feels more like mine.”

She nods, letting out a small puff of laughter at that. “Okay.” 

She stands and drags him up off the chair and into a hug. He’s surprised, she usually only behaves like this when she’s had reason to worry about him, but he wraps his own arms around her and squeezes her tight. She holds him at arm’s length after a long moment and studies his face. 

Whatever she sees there must satisfy her because she nods, then adds, “You thought about jobs and things?” she asks, and he knows this is the main point. 

She’s right. He needs to share in their costs, and working will give him something to do, a space that feels like he fits. Fitting himself in around his new life is the best thing he can do. So he nods.

“I’ve been looking a bit today. There’s not much out there, but I have a few things to follow up.”

The buzzer sounds, loud in the still that’s dropped around them, and Laura starts.

“Oh.” She casts a look at David, considering and a little wary. “That’ll be Matteo. He said he was coming over today.”

Something flutters in David’s chest and he licks his lips, uncertain. For all that he’d just been thinking how much better their last meeting had been, he’s not sure if he’s ready for Matteo to slot back into his life, not in this way in his home where things are more intimate.

As if she understands, Laura twists her lips consideringly. “I can tell him I’m busy if you don’t want him to come. I’ve done it before, you know.”

David laughs, remembering the long ago day when Laura had shut Matteo out for him when everything was too much and he’d been too scared to open up. 

“No. It’s… it’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

“Well okay,” she says, moving to let Matteo into the building and opening the door for him, “but if it gets weird just give me the old sign and I’ll get rid of him.”

He loves his sister, David thinks as they wait for Matteo to get there. She may annoy him, and try to boss him due to age and experience, but she’s always had his back and he has to remember that. Even if things are still a little weird here, there are people who care about him and will always be there.

Matteo stills in the doorway when he spots David, and his eyes flicker as if he’s thinking about running away, but Laura saves the situation again, grabbing his arm and pulling him into the room.

“Where’ve you been all week, asshole?” she asks, and he laughs. 

It’s a sound David has missed more than he can explain, and he wishes Matteo would laugh more. But of course he’s just had a break up and the easy laughter he’d shared openly and often during their relationship isn’t likely to be in huge supply right now.

“I’ve been working,” Matteo says, kicking out at her with his foot in a way that David recognises and which makes him suck in a breath. It’s so effortlessly, specifically Matteo that he can feel that nostalgia rising in his chest again. Is it going to always be like this? Is every little thing he used to love about Matteo going to attack him like this?

But then, Matteo looks up at him and grins. It settles something in David. He’s missed this, yes, and nothing can be the same, but it’s good that Matteo feels normal enough with him around. If they can do this then they can maybe carve out some sort of friendship from all of this.

“Hey,” Matteo says quietly. “I didn’t realise you’d be here.”

David shrugs. “I sort of live here now, so.”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Laura’s irritated eye roll, so he’s ready when she shoves him. “You’re here under sufferance,” she says. “Get a job or I might just substitute Matteo instead,”

Matteo’s shaking his head and laughing again. “No thanks. Too many stairs for me.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side,” Laura says, shaking her head at him with a chuckle. “Don’t let him think he’s irreplaceable.”

She flits off then, to the bathroom presumably, and an uncomfortable silence settles around the two of them.

Matteo sits down in one of the chairs and drums his fingers on the table top. It’s endearing, David thinks, that he still has the nervous habit when he’s not comfortable. It’s still weird to see him doing it because of David, but it’s these little things that make him wonder if Matteo really had been right. New eyes are starting to see the familiar in between the strange. It’s a comforting thought that maybe one day this will all feel truly normal again.

“You’re looking for a job?” Matteo asks eventually.

Sliding into a chair on the other side of the table, David nods. “Yeah. I’m not sure if my qualification is going to be any help, but I want to find something anyway.”

“It’s cool that you did it,” Matteo says. “We’ve been stuck here going nowhere new, and you’ve been exploring the world.”

David laughs at that, and catches Matteo’s eyes, sees the sparkling reciprocation in them. “I wouldn’t call one small university in one small state ‘exploring the world’ but it was pretty cool I guess.”

Hearing that Matteo almost envies him his experience starts to put things into perspective for David. It’s weird and alienating to return here and to feel like everyone and everything has moved on without him, but he also needs to remember that he’s probably exotic and interesting to the people around him now. That he’s had experiences other people have missed out on as well.

“You said you’re working?”

“Yeah,” Matteo says. “I’m studying some electronics stuff to see where that takes me, but I work part time too.”

‘That’s really cool.”

It is, David thinks. Genuinely cool. Matteo tries to deflect the compliment, in a way that’s painfully familiar, but David really loves that he lived up to their promise to each other. To live life to the fullest.

“I mean it. It’s good that you live a good life,” he says. “I wasn’t so good at keeping our promise.”

Matteo shakes his head. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “You gained a qualification in an area you love. You said you had some relationships?” When David nods, he grins. “See. You didn’t sit around moping.” He sits quietly for a few moments before he adds quietly, “we did the right thing. Breaking up, I mean.”

“You really think so?”

“Yeah I do. I mean, it was hard, right? There were too many times when I wanted to tell you something because you were always the one I turned to, and it sucked shit that I couldn’t do that. But mostly it worked, yeah?”

David shrugs; he’s not entirely sure it  _ did _ work, and Matteo seems to pick up on that, giving a little nod of recognition.  _ Even after this time he understands me, _ David thinks ruefully.

Matteo examines him for a second before saying, “I think if we’d tried to keep it up it would have ended in a shit way. Even with the best intentions that happens, and it was years...”

He purses his lips again, in a way that David just knows means he’s thinking of Sebastian, and he’s hit with a completely inappropriate shaft of jealousy. He thinks of his own relationships, all hampered by his remaining feelings for Matteo, and nods.

“I guess.”

“But this way, we can do this,” Matteo points out. “I guess I can only talk for myself, but I like that I don’t hate you. I like that we can talk.”

This time, David's smile is more genuine. “That’s true,” he says, meaning it. It  _ is _ good that there’s no lingering resentment or hard feelings about the way they ended. “Do you think we can… maybe keep talking sometimes?”

Matteo tilts his head to look at him, then nods. “Yeah I think so. You’re still pretty cool, so you up my cred.”

David laughs at that. “You just want me for the cool factor?”

“Yeah. Didn’t you know that’s always been why?”

David’s about to jokingly protest when Laura returns, and stops the thought in mid flight. He has a shrewd idea that she stayed away on purpose to give them space to talk. Normally that would piss him off, but today he’s grateful. Being with Matteo is still all sorts of weird, there’s still dissonance between how things are and how they have been. But Matteo’s right. David enjoys his company, something that’s become obvious over their few meetings, and knowing they can see each other and be at least comfortable-adjacent means a lot.

Watching as Matteo and Laura start bickering about something that happened a year ago, he realises he’s not feeling quite as out of sorts about that as he has done. He likes that they’re still friends. He likes that it means he can keep having this. Maybe he can find a place here, with these people, after all.


	6. Matteo

**Mid summer 2023**

“Oi, losers! I am here to bless your day,” Matteo calls out as he pushes open Laura’s front door and makes his way into the apartment. He should probably say ‘Laura and David’s’ door, really. After a few weeks he’s much more comfortable here, and he’s getting used to David also being around when he visits.

It’s nice, actually. Matteo’s still not quite sure of their footing, so he’s never actually visiting David; Laura is always the reason for any visits and they always have a purpose. But, Matteo has to admit that it’s better when David is here. 

There’s a clatter and a curse from the kitchen and a few seconds later David’s head pops around the door frame.

“Laura’s not here right now,” he says with a cheerful grin, wiping the front of his shirt where something wet and reddish is dripping. “But she left me in charge and with strict instructions to keep you here til she gets back.” He laughs as they enter the kitchen and Matteo can see the toppled pan that caused the cursing he’d heard. Tomato sauce is splattered all over the wall and on the stove top.

David catches his look and grimaces. “Yeah. She really shouldn’t leave me in charge of cooking.”

Matteo can’t help the burst of laughter that spills out of him. “She’s going to kill you.”

“I know.” David grins over at him. “It was nice knowing you.”

Laughing again, feeling much lighter than he has since Sebastian who never treated mishaps like these as a laughing matter, Matteo moves to pick up a washcloth.

“You should go change,” he says. “I’ll deal with this.”

David tries to protest, but Matteo turns his back on him with a grin of his own and starts carefully removing the worst of the mess. He hears a huff behind him, remembers exactly how irritated that means David is, and starts whistling cheerfully just to annoy him further. It’s nice, being able to do this. Because he knows David understands where he’s coming from, and he knows David appreciates the gesture even while he complains. It’s so _ familiar. _

When David comes back out, he wrestles Matteo in an attempt to get the cloth out of his hands. For a second, Matteo’s back stiffens and he considers pulling back, but it’s actually nice to be able to be free and natural with David so he lets himself lean into the moment, hanging onto the sopping fabric as long as he can before letting it go so quickly that David falls back and the cloth flops up and hits him in the face.

Matteo can’t help the giggles that well up then. David looks so comical, his eyes wide and horrified as he realises what is about to happen, and he gives Matteo such a reproachful look when he pulls the cloth back off his face, that Matteo’s sniggers erupt again. 

Eventually, Matteo drops into a chair at the table, props his head on his hand and watches David finish the work. The cloth has left a streak of the red sauce on his cheek and it’s unfairly endearing watching it as David applies himself carefully to eliminating every trace of his mishap. After a few minutes he finishes, and moves over to the table. 

He flops down into a chair and throws his head back, arms wide as if he’s just finished a marathon.

“I am  _ not _ starting that again. Laura can deal with food when she gets home if she wants it.”

“I can help,” Matteo says, leaning forward to wipe the smudge off David’s cheek without thinking.

When they realise what he’s doing, they both pause, frozen for a moment. It was such a natural gesture, one Matteo has made countless times with countless friends. But it’s David. And there’s a history there.

“I… uh. Sorry,” Matteo says, pulling his fingers away as if burned. “I didn’t mean…”

David shakes his head and laughs as he wipes the rest off by himself. “It’s fine.” He smiles, eyes bright and face lit up in a way that is only just starting to look natural on him since he came back. “I appreciate the help.” He leans back in the chair again. “But I also absolutely won’t let you cook, either. Laura got herself into this mess by asking me to do it. She can deal with the consequences.”

Shrugging, Matteo leans back too, his fingers dropping to drum a beat on the table top. “Okay.”

He can sense David’s gaze on him out of the corner of his eye and he looks at him again, raises his eyebrow in question. Blushing, David shrugs.

“You still do that,” he comments. “When you’re nervous.”

Matteo drops his eyes to his hands and stills them when he realises what he’s doing. “Yeah. I guess. It’s a habit.”

“I know,” David says quietly. “It still feels weird that I make you nervous.”

Blinking away a sudden moisture in his eyes, Matteo nods. He’s felt that too. Even though they’re much less awkward around each other, and David is again quickly becoming one of the people he most wants to spend time with, they haven’t really discussed how to exist together and so lingering moments of awkwardness still hit out of the blue.

“Why don’t we just talk about it,” Matteo says impulsively. “Right here, right now sort out how to deal with this sort of shit. So we can just get it cleared up and stop being like this.”

He waves a hand between them in illustration. David examines him for a moment, then lets his breath out in a long sigh.

“Yeah,” he says. “Okay.”

They look at each other for a long moment before Matteo laughs. “This is so stupid.”

“Mmmmm,” David agrees. He sits back and takes a careful breath. “I never really stopped thinking about you,” he says quietly. “I didn’t really know it then, but everyone was just not you and it sucked.”

“It did suck,” Matteo agrees. “I wanted to tell you, that day you came back actually, how much you meant to me in terms of being able to get on with my life.” He taps his fingers on the table again, nerves brimming again. But this is good. It’s good that they’re working through this. “I didn’t realise I just wanted to see you because I missed you.”

A small smile flicks up the corners of David’s mouth. “So we missed each other. Understandable.”

Matteo laughs. “Yeah. I mean, we are  _ clearly _ the very best.” He sobers quickly. “It did suck, though. Not seeing you for so long.”

“It’s been good, all this,” David agrees, waving a hand between them to indicate their time together since he’s been home. “But I know you only come when Laura’s here. I know I still make you feel awkward.”

While he could point out that Laura isn’t here right now, Matteo refrains. She may not be here, but he had expected to have her as a buffer when he came over so David’s not wrong.

“It just feels odd,” Matteo admits. “Like I can’t just be your friend and hang out like with the boys. Like I have to have a reason for being here.”

He’d expected the words to sting David, as they might have in the past, but instead he smiles. “I’m the same,” he says quietly. “I want you to be here, but I can’t ever just ask you over or go hang at your place.”

“That’s stupid,” Matteo grumbles. “We can be friends, right? I can come see you. You can come see me. That’s what friends do.”

‘Yeah,” David says, giving him an unfathomable look. It reinforces the ways that things are different now; Matteo still can’t always read David, not the way he used to be able to. It brings home how much there is still sitting between them. “That’s what friends do.”

“I mean, you must see it too,” Matteo says, leaning forward again to impress his point. “I like you. As a person. I want to hang out with you.”

David nods. “Yeah, me too.”

Silence falls for a moment while they each contemplate the other, but eventually David smiles. He holds out his hand and Matteo laughs, remembering their last very awkward handshake so many years ago when they were all nerves and all they wanted was to be alone with each other. It feels fitting, in a way, to revisit that moment. For a second, those awkward emotions that have piled up in the wake of David’s return threaten to intrude. But then, David laughs too.

“You know us, we thrive on communicating through awkward handshakes. This is our brand.”

Laughing again, Matteo acknowledges the truth of that. That David can joke about it, removing the vestiges of the tension they’ve been living with for the past few weeks, makes it all a lot easier for Matteo. They may never rekindle what started with all those painfully tense looks and awkward hand shakes, but they can surely build something new on that foundation, on the familiar sense of wanting to be around each other even without knowing  _ how _ to do that. They did it once, they can do it again. 

Matteo takes David’s hand and shakes it once, firmly. As ridiculous as the moment has been, it genuinely does feel like a new start.


	7. David

**Late summer 2023**

His arm over his eyes, blocking out the bright sun as it beams down on the group, David lies with his head on a wadded up towel. Matteo’s by his side, altogether distracting even though he’s just sitting, arms propped up on his knees and hands dangling free enough to move as he speaks, while talking to the other boys. His eyes are lit up, his gestures emphatic and designed to irritate, and his voice holds only a teasing lilt. It’s so good to see him this way, having fun roasting the others, the way David remembers him.

It’s been a nice few weeks, David thinks as he watches Matteo fondly from under his elbow. After their pact to be friends, even while acknowledging just how awkward the whole situation is, things just got easier. In one way anyway. It’s easier to be near Matteo, it’s easier to talk to him, to avoid the sorts of bizarre tense pauses that had characterised the time when he first got back to Germany.

In a totally different way it’s becoming so hard. Because Matteo had been right. Once his eyes (or probably more to the point, his attitude) had recentered to Germany and his old friends, David had become more settled, feeling less alien and less like a fish out of water. He’s also rekindled everything he once felt about Matteo. He doesn’t see anymore the multitude ways in which Matteo has changed and developed, doesn’t see that as a rejection of everything they once were and once had anymore. Instead, he sees Matteo as an intoxicating combination of the person he used to know and the confident man he’s become.

So it’s getting difficult to hang out with him for an entirely different reason. David doesn’t feel awkward around him at all anymore. They’re great as friends, falling easily into the patterns of the past now that they’re agreed on what they are, and the friendship that underlay their relationship has blossomed into one of the most fulfilling David has ever known. The problem is that David feels a desperate, aching need to reconnect in another way. He sighs. It’s so weird to be pining like a hormonal teen, and even weirder that he’s pining over the exact same person he did when he  _ was _ a teen.

A squelchy, wet sponge slaps down onto David’s chest and he sits up, startled and spluttering as a splash of water hits him in the face, and the sponge drops, dripping, to the ground. He looks up, sees Abdi grinning and unrepentant, and the other boys all watching too, with various amused expressions on their faces. Matteo’s eyes are bright with delight so David throws the sponge at him, making him duck quickly out of the way, and the sponge lands behind him, hitting Jonas in the chest, and sending a spray of water up into his face.

“Fuck you,” Jonas says, wiping the glistening drops off his chin as Matteo snorts out a chuckle and David lies back down onto his wadded up towel.

“You need better reflexes,” Matteo says, shrugging. “Either that or you need to know David better.”

“Mmmm,” is Jonas’s unconvinced reply as he shoves his foot into Matteo’s side, pushing him off balance so he flops down onto David’s chest.

Humming, Matteo just turns so he can see everyone and stays where he is. It’s just another form of torture. Matteo is so comfortable lying over anyone and everyone, and since they tentatively restarted their friendship, Matteo has started doing it to David as well. So it’s natural and normal and should not have him losing his breath the way it does. Because Matteo means nothing by it, even as he wriggles to get himself more comfortable and sends a teasing looking over his shoulder at David.

“Why are you so comfy?” he asks with a contented sigh, and David forces a laugh. 

“I’ve just always been that way.” He can feel a more genuine smile flicking up onto his lips as Matteo closes his eyes and lets his own contentment show on his face.

“You have,” Matteo agrees. “I remember that.”

Jonas shakes his head sadly at the sopping mess of his t-shirt, then slides down next to them, cocking his head to examine the way they’re sitting.

“When did you get back together?” he asks, poking Matteo’s leg with his toes.

Matteo sits up immediately, and looks back at David. He seems tense, as if this is something that alarms him. “We didn’t,” he says, turning back to Jonas. “We’re just friends. Like you and me.”

“Yeah,” David says.

He sits up too, heart pounding. It seems like the way he’s been feeling, the way he’s slid back into his old feelings for Matteo, has come back to bite him. He hasn’t been hiding it as well as he thought. Part of him would love to just admit it and let everyone know, let  _ Matteo _ know. But he’s also worried about what this might do to their friendship.

They worked hard to forge this easiness between them, so the last thing David wants to do is to shatter that with the intrusions of his own, inconvenient feelings. But it seems like maybe David has been trying so hard to deny what  _ he _ feels to really notice what’s going on with Matteo.

Because Jonas scoffs, and says, “If you really think this is like you and me, Luigi, I think we gotta talk about what you expect from  _ our _ friendship.”

Carlos and Abdi chorus a delighted, “oooh,” which makes Matteo roll his eyes.

He looks back over his shoulder at David again, a question in his eyes. It startles David a little to realise that over the last few weeks he’s learned to read Matteo again, almost as well as he did when they were together. This look tells him Matteo’s been thinking of all this too. He looks soft, vulnerable. He looks as if he’s worried about how David is taking this. Something buzzes between them in the intensity of that look.

“They always had the vibes,” Carlos says, looking between the two of them, as if that settles it. With Matteo still looking at him like  _ that, _ David thinks maybe it does.

“I think we should talk,” he says abruptly to Matteo, and stands up. “Maybe clarify a few things.”

Matteo nods, and follows him. They walk together away from the others and down to the edge of the water. They’re sheltered here, away from the prying eyes of the boys, because as much as David wants to claim his feelings for Matteo, he doesn’t want an audience for this. It feels too fragile to let anyone else intrude on  _ this _ part.

They sit quietly, side by side, neither one willing to break the silence. Matteo has his arms slung over his knees and stares into the water. The soft lapping of the waves is the only sound for a long moment.

“It was weird, right?” Matteo says eventually. “What the guys thought about us?”

David laughs, strained and uncertain.  _ Weird. Okay. _ “Yeah I guess.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it all a bit strange. Since you’ve been back I mean.”

Matteo looks over at him then, one eye squinting in the way he always used to do when he was being serious. It makes David’s heart ache a little knowing that he can still understand all those little mannerisms. That all these things still  _ matter _ to him. 

“Strange how?” David asks.

“I don’t know. Just… I keep getting these strange moments where it’s like everything’s the same as it was.” He swallows, his Adam's apple moving as he looks away and back towards the water. “And then I kind of…  _ want _ it to be the same even though I know it’s not.”

His voice has dropped, and there’s a hesitant tone in it as he turns back to David. His body has stiffened, all sense of ease and calm gone now. It’s clear that he genuinely means this. David turns to him, feeling a lightness in his chest. Matteo feels the same way. Those feelings are all reciprocated.

“Me too,” David says. “I want that too. I miss you.”

Matteo laughs, and David feels that sense of delight again because he knows exactly why Matteo’s laughing. As he always has, he’s being a dick just to tease. That sense of rightness increases; Matteo teasing him in emotional moments just feels  _ right. _

“I know you’re right here,” he says. “Don’t be an ass; you know what I mean. I miss being with you. I miss... us.”

“What if it’s a mistake, though,” Matteo whispers even as his body relaxes and presses close alongside David’s. “What if we try again and it fucks up? What if it’s like… like Sebastian?”

It’s a fair point, and one David has considered many many times when he’d tried to make himself ‘be sensible’ over all of this. They’d ended in a way that allowed them to be friends like this because they hadn’t been ready to part. None of the bloom had worn off who they were together, and so they’ve each lived in the other’s memory as something bright and shining. Something for other relationships to live up to. There’s always the fear that they’ve idealised something that can’t live up to that ideal in reality.

Still. There’s also this. The way they understand each other, the way they’re on the same wavelength. The way they are good friends now. The way all of this feels easy and natural. The way this seems like the only right thing to do.

David nods. “I’ve thought about that,” he says. “I admit it’s scary, worrying that we could end up hating each other. But… we’re friends, right? We like each other as people. None of that has changed so far. I think we should try.” He sucks in a breath. “Because I can’t keep any of these feelings inside anymore. I still want to be with you. That never changed.”

“It never changed for me either,” Matteo says, his voice soft and husky. “You’re still the best person I know.”

After that, there’s nothing much else to say. If he’d thought about how a reunion might go, David would probably have come up with something dramatic and big. Something like shouting at each other in an abandoned pool then staying there all night like the extra assholes they were.

Instead it’s this. His lips brush Matteo’s, and he feels like it’s been an inevitability. He feels like he’s come home. Sighing, pressing closer, his hands coming up to tangle in hair that’s exactly as silky as he remembers it, David lets himself drown in the feelings.

It’s different.  _ They’re _ different. And yet it’s also the same. Kissing Matteo holds the same thrill, the same warmth that blooms in his chest. 

“Why did we wait so long?” Matteo whispers against his mouth as they part briefly.

David laughs, soft and tender. “I think we needed to,” he says. “Being friends first, that helped.”

“Yeah,” Matteo agrees, his own fingers questing up and along David’s jawline as if he’s tracing the ways in which David has changed. Something in his eyes softens and brightens as his fingers reach David’s lips and trace their outline. He smiles.

“Best friends. Best lovers,” Matteo says, the old cheeky look David so loved back on his face. “I think we can say we are… the best.”

Laughing, remembering that day when they were newly ‘them’ and teasing each other in David’s bed, David presses forward.  _ This _ is who they are, and this is what’s important.

They kiss again, and again and again. They kiss until it’s like they never stopped. They kiss, making a new promise to the future.


	8. Matteo

**Late summer 2023**

“So you two stopped being irritating, then,” Laura says, sliding into a seat opposite to David at the table.

He winces, jerking his foot away from hers and Matteo’s sure she kicked him under the table. It amuses him, the way they do that. The way they always have done that. He’s always missed having siblings, so the fact that David has Laura has always been something he felt a little jealous of. But not anymore. Laura took him under her wing as soon as David left. She kicks  _ him  _ too, a symbol of how she views him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” David says haughtily. But he knocks Matteo’s knee with his own, and quirks his head in her direction when Matteo raises one eyebrow at him.

Laura laughs. “You’re doing this shit again,” she says. “I know you got back together. You can’t hide it.”

Matteo shrugs. “And if we did?”

“I’d think you finally came to your stupid senses.”

David laughs. “I don’t know if we did, or if this is the stupidest thing we’ve ever considered doing.” He looks at Matteo, taking his hand and smiling at him. “But yeah, we decided to try again.”

“You have been driving me mad!” Laura says, throwing her hands up in the air. “I don’t even know why you broke up to begin with.”

“David being all noble,” Matteo says, with a smile. “We wanted to be able to live a life while he was away.” He smiles, feeling all the fondness for David welling up. “And then he never lived up to it himself.”

“That sounds like him,” Laura smiles. “Always trying to make you happy. He was like that from the minute he met you. That’s how I knew he wasn’t ever over you; he kept trying to do it.”

“Ass,” David says, pushing Matteo. “You were no better.”

In between the laughter, Matteo can hear the vulnerability in David’s voice. Laura clearly hears it too because she sobers quickly, her face becoming serious as she leans forward over the table and takes their hands.

“To be serious, though. It’s been really obvious how hard this has been for you. For both of you,” she adds quickly as Matteo opens his mouth to protest. “You’re not exempt from this, Matteo. I know you didn’t come here all the time just because you love me so much.”

That much is true, Matteo thinks. It’s not like he was pining, or anything; he had always tried to live up to the promise they made to each other. But he did get some sort of comfort in being around Laura, someone who missed David as much as he did. Someone who knew him. Someone who was a connection to him.

“I do love you, though,” Matteo says, sniggering as she rolls her eyes.

“You know we appreciate you, Laura,” David says. “You’ve been nothing but supportive; even all those really un-subtle times when you’d leave us here together after I got back.”

“It’s been SO frustrating,” Laura says, throwing her hands wide. “It’s obvious to me that you should be doing this, so why it took so long…”

“It’s the Sebastian effect,” Matteo says quietly. “I didn’t want to jump into anything because-”

“Do not tell me it’s because you were so heartbroken over him.”

Matteo laughs. “I know how much you’ve always loved him.”

“He didn’t treat you right. Not even at the start.”

“Nah,” Matteo says. “It was fine. He’s not David, but it was nice for a while.” He sucks in a breath and smiles at her. “It’s not because of feeling sad about the breakup with him, because I didn’t really. It’s mostly because I… or rather,  _ we, _ worried that we could lose what we had if things went wrong. Like I did with Sebastian.”

“Well, there’s no guarantees in life,” Laura says sagely. “So you’d best live as well as you can in the meantime.”

“Yeah we got there eventually,” David says, taking a sip of his coffee. “Besides, I’m better than that other guy.”

His laugh is cheeky when Matteo shoves him. “Asshole. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

“Yeah you do,” David says. “It’s because you love me.”

“Annnd that’s my cue to leave,” Laura says, standing up hurriedly. “You two have fun being all stupidly gushy at each other. I’m going to bed.”

They sit together, legs entwined as they drink their own coffees. That’s one of the nicest things about reconnecting with David as a friend first. That these routines are routine now. That they can sit quietly together, just being in the same space, without worrying that the other might react in a strange way. There’s no expectation for babble and filling in the silences with meaningless words.

Not that there ever was much of that with David. Tension and awkwardness, yes. But no worries that he’d ever insist on Matteo talking when he didn’t want to. And that’s always been his greatest gift. That he’s given Matteo the space to be silent, therefore making him want to talk and open up, to share things with David that are too precious or too scary to share with anyone else.

That he didn’t know what he wanted to do when he was still at school. That he felt listless and lost and unconnected to everyone and everything. David never judged him then, and he’s never since he got back either. 

“I do,” Matteo says quietly. He smiles when David looks at him, brow quirked in question. “Love you. I do love you. I always have; expect I always will.”

“Yeah,” David agrees, leaning forward to kiss him softly, a bare brush of lips that nevertheless settles something deep inside Matteo’s chest. “I’ve always loved you too. Even when I told myself I shouldn’t.”

“I’m not letting you go this time,” Matteo says quietly. “I don’t think I could go through this again. I love you, and I’m going to keep you.”

David laughs, prods him in the side, making him squirm away. Matteo knows it’s his way of pricking the intensity of the moment. But that doesn’t matter either. He knows David feels the same way, that sometimes he can get overwhelmed with the intensity of his feelings and try to deflect. So he just leans forward and smiles into a kiss.

“No,” he says, answering the unasked question. “You don’t get a say in it. I’m keeping you this time.”

“I was actually going to say that you can’t keep me,” David says with a cocky grin, now that they’re joking about it. “Because  _ I’m _ keeping  _ you.” _

“Guess that means neither of us is escaping,” Matteo says, laughing even more as David grabs him and pulls him off his own seat and onto David’s lap.

“Do you want to?” David asks quietly, once he has Matteo settled to his liking. 

“No,” Matteo whispers, just as quietly. “I want to stay here with you. For always.”

“We’re just supposed to happen,” David says. “We should just accept that the universe knows what it’s doing. Best friends and lovers. Of course we’re irresistible to each other.”

And that, Matteo thinks fondly, is the best thing about all of this. It may have been painful and difficult to stay away from each other for so long. The time together after David came back may have been awkward and tense. But they’ve grown, as people and as a pair. So what they have now feels more solid, more weighty, than what they had before David left. 

As much as Matteo had expressed concerns about what happens if they fall out of love, he’s sure it won’t happen. They have been through so much and still chosen each other. They have had to separate and try new lives alone. They’ve been through all of that and come out the other side, stronger and better for the break.

“There’s still one thing to work out,” Matteo says, making his voice as serious as he can as he pushes a strand of David's hair back off his face.

“Mmmmm?” 

There’s a tinge of uneasiness in David’s voice, which Matteo tries to push away with a small kiss. It seems to work, as David’s smiling when Matteo pulls back.

“Do we tell the boys? We kind of ditched them the other day, left them hanging on a cliffhanger.”

David looks up into his face, head tilted as if he’s thinking about it seriously. But the effect is somewhat blunted by the way he grins, letting his fingers slide up to rest on Matteo’s hips. 

“No,” he says. “They deserve to suffer, making assumptions the way they did.”

Matteo sniggers at that. “To be fair to them - we probably did kind of act like we’re together.”

“They still shouldn’t assume things,” David says, his chin jutting out in the stubborn way he has when he’s dead set on a course. “We’re allowed to be close without people assuming things.”

Looking down at his face, Matteo can’t hold in his laughter. His heart feels light; he’s missed this the most. The two of them having a shared outlook. It’s always been nice having that one person who just understands him, who’s also willing to take a shared pleasure in teasing the people around them.

“Okay,” he says, leaning in and asking for another kiss, which David obliges him by giving. “We won’t tell them yet. They can work it out; we can see how long it takes..”

He kisses David again, deeper this time, feels a little dazed when he pulls back. David laughs, pushes his hair back off his face, and trails his fingers down and along Matteo's cheek.

“If you look at me like that when they’re around, they’ll figure it out pretty fast.”

“I guess that means we’re telling them, then.” Matteo leans to kiss him again. “One way or another.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You love this idiot.”

David doesn’t even bother to protest, just settles Matteo more firmly on his knee and pulls his head down into another kiss. And that, Matteo thinks, is perfectly fine by him. As shitty as the time apart may have been, Matteo doesn’t regret it. He’s grown into this, they both have, and no matter what may come, what they have in the here and now matters. They made a commitment to stick together, and this time Matteo is determined to keep it. Coming back together has just shown him what he should always have known.

What they have together is special, and should be fought for.


End file.
